Reply to Does anyone live in a community that is “too much” socially?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't understand why wouldn't parents want their kids/teens to have neighborhood friends?  Why would they want anti social neighbors? A social neighborhood that does things is so much fun.[/quote]

I didn't read any posts complaining about neighborhood kid friends. It's the adult socializing that is tricky as it's easier to avoid those you would clash with personality wise in other areas (work, school...). In a neighborhood, you can't get away and it's the most gossip prone, bitter or disfunctionally high energy/alcoholic/unable to be alone extroverts that ground themselves at the center of the neighborhood social scenes. The awkward guy who makes uncomfortably forward comments suddenly finds himself with a built in group of friends and claws into it fiercly because he can't get this social group any other way. As someone mentioned above, the offensive dad accusing others of being abusive or alcoholics.

I've read threads here about wanting to exclude a neighbor "friend" they don't like from a gathering because they don't get along and I've read threads about someone hurt they drove by a gathering they were excluded from. It's always in your face, Halloween always comes with drama for the uninvited and social media. Parents get hypercompetitive about college acceptances more than they would be with a random classmate simply because of proximity.

There are threads were a woman wants to see her friendly neighbor but no longer wants their kids together because one kid is verbally abusive or a bad influence and again the proximity makes that difficult. Parents who no longer get along put an uncomfortable strain on kids who still want to hang out.

I don't think social neighborhoods are all doomed, but decent neighbors are like gold. It's not "antisocial" to prefer standoffish neighbors if you don't want to center your social life around your neighbors.[/quote]

Agree. I think I like the idea of having neighbors who are close friends in theory, but realistically that situation is ripe for problems because if there is any conflict at all in the friendship, it could get blown up.

Some people don't really know how to maintain healthy boundaries in relationships, and I've found that you can use physical distance as a good proxy for better boundaries in order to maintain friendships with people like this. It's not ideal but it works with people who, for instance, don't take "no" for a complete answer very well, or who have a tendency to get jealous or insecure in friendships. These are not fundamentally bad people, they just have some bad relationship habits, and sometimes it's just easier to maintain relationships if you have built in boundaries.

Likewise, when I meet people in my neighborhood who show some red flag signs of not understanding boundaries (they impose a lot of pressure to accept invites, they invite themselves to things or show up to things with extra people you had no idea they were bringing, they gossip about others a lot, they ask a lot of very personal questions or push for personal details when it's clear someone is reluctant to share, etc.), I steer clear of them. They might be great people in other ways, but I don't want to develop a close friendship with someone who lives on my block and is the kind of person who will hawkishly observe that we had people over for dinner two nights ago and that they were not included in that invite and how come? Or hey you have to come to our BBQ on Saturday, I know you aren't busy, you never take your car out on Saturdays and I've seen you guys just hanging out at home. I do not need that kind of energy in my life.[/quote]

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